CMM 2024-02-11

Minutes of Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business

Concord (NH) Monthly Meeting of

the Religious Society of Friends

11^th of Second Month 2024 [1]

Thirteen Friends gathered for meeting for worship to attend to business, in person and by Zoom. We opened with a brief period of quiet Worship.  The clerk read a quote from Howard Brinton about Quaker Meeting business process,

At its best, the Quaker method does not result in a compromise.  A compromise is not likely to satisfy anyone completely.  The objective of the Quaker method is to discover Truth which will satisfy everyone more fully than did any position previously held.  Each and all can then say, ‘That is what I really wanted, but I did not realize it.’  To discover what we really want as compared to what at first we think we want, we must go below the surface of self-centered desires to the deeper level where the real Self resides.  The deepest Self of all is that Self which we share with all others.  This is the one Vine of which we all are branches [John 15:1–6], the Life of God on which our own individual lives are based.  To will what God wills is, therefore, to will what we ourselves really want.

~ Howard H. Brinton. Reaching decisions: the Quaker method. Wallingford Pa., Pendle Hill, 1952. [2]  (Pendle Hill Pamphlet № 65, page 18)

Minutes of First month 2024 [3] were approved as posted on our website.

02.01  Treasurer’s Report:  The treasurer reported on the first 8 months of the fiscal year.  Income was $22,410.07 and expenses were $19,557.73 for a net increase in our bank account of $2,852.34.  It is notable that we have given 100% of our substantial yearly contributions to American Friends Service Committee and New England Yearly Meeting.

02.02  COVID Guidance: Ministry and Counsel has brought a recommendation to modify our current requirement for COVID immunization to attend our Meeting for Worship in person.   There was no exact wording suggested but the general sense that they shared was that they wished to change our policy to a strong recommendation of vaccination against COVID rather than a requirement or expectation.  There was an extended discussion of how our policy would be most welcoming to our own community and to those who might wish to join our worship in person.  There was a sense of the Meeting that any changes in this policy should be decided through further discernment by our Ministry and Counsel and to have a full statement from Ministry and Counsel to consider.

We closed with a few moments of quiet reflection together with gratitude for our willingness to labor together on this difficult area that has evoked disparate feelings, purposing to meet again on the second First Day of Third month 2024.

* “A budget is a moral document” ~ often attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968)

NB. The Income & Expenses Sheet was created with two decimal points, which were removed for readability, the cents being unimportant to the overall understanding.  This can have the effect of throwing off any given sum by a dollar due to compounded rounding.  —  Prepared by Greg Heath and Chris Haigh.

Concord Monthly Meeting Grant Progress Report [15]

Obadiah Brown’s Benevolent Fund

February 7, 2024

Concord (NH) Monthly Meeting joyously received $10,000 from your organization in 2023 for funding a new, environmentally beneficial, and safer heating system.  This is our progress report on how helpful your funding has been towards reaching our goals with the new heating system.

1. Achieved a net-zero carbon emissions Meetinghouse:
   
   Due to the shift of energy type used in our Meetinghouse from wood-fired furnace to geothermal heat pump, we now use no wood (thus cancelling our modest amount of smoke) and rely instead on an extra amount of electricity.  But all the electricity we now need is being generated, over a full year’s period, from our previously installed solar panels.  We will be evaluating the amount of extra electricity we are using this first year of the new system and expect to have a close approximation by the end of our fiscal year (ending on May 31, 2024).   We are certain, however, that we produce more than we use.
2. Improved the fire safety of our building which now meets stiffer building codes:
   
   1. Enabled us to host and sponsor large gatherings as an approved place of public assembly:
      
      We now can host events or rent out our Meetinghouse for gatherings of more than 49 people.  In fact, we have already had our first public fund-raising musical event since the shift to the safer heating system and it drew about 75 people and raised a good amount of money for the Asylum Seekers’ Fund.
   2. Increased our own safety:
      
      Part of the State Fire Marshall’s building requirements for public assembly was to improve the fire exit signage throughout the building, install a fire-locater box outside our main entrance for use by the fire department, and discontinue using the stove-top burners in our food preparation room.  This work is complete.
   3. Increased the number of childcare spaces in our part of the state:
      
      We now rent part of our Meetinghouse to an outdoor-focused childcare program which required us to either install an expensive fireproofing of the room that held our old wood-fired furnace, or to shift to a heating system that needed no furnace.  The State Fire Marshall approved our building in August, 2023, thanks to the replacement of our old furnace with the new geothermal heat pump.  The childcare program is now serving twelve pre-school children.
   4. Increased our Meeting’s visibility among younger families in the area:
      
      There are now twelve families who send their children to the outdoor childcare program at our Meetinghouse, with four more expected later this winter.  Many of them would not have known of our Meeting without the childcare program being offered there.

Project Status:  The geothermal heating system’s two wells were dug, and the geothermal heat pump was in operation by September 30, 2023.  All the required fire safety upgrades were completed by mid-August, including the $12,000 fire alarm system.  The old wood pellet storage bin and furnace were removed and sold prior to the installation of the geothermal heat pump system.  All of the interior work to meet the other fire safety improvements has been completed.  The new outdoor childcare program, that was only approved once the fire safety improvements had been made, successfully began operations on August 21.

We initially dedicated $20,000 of our own funds toward this project, borrowed the remainder from a few Meeting members, and instituted a fund-raising program of $30,000 for the rest.  We have exceeded our fund-raising goal by $4,135.

We are planning to receive a Federal subsidy (30% of the geothermal system’s cost) by the second half of 2024.   Once that occurs, we should be able to repay the Meeting members who generously loaned out the funds needed to start and complete the project on time. 

The Meeting has stayed within its approved budget of $20,000 from its own cash and that amount should be reduced to about$18,500 by the end of this year.

See the table below showing the sources and uses of funds for this total project.